NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
At first glance one could easily form an opinion of what the contents of the poem The Black Lace Fan my Mother Gave me directly form the title. First, the use of the adjective, black, is generally used to portray a feeling of darkness, sorrow, or even death. Lace is a delicate, beautiful, and flamboyant material usually on the outside edge of other materials that could mean something in this poem may have a frail edge. The phrase my Mother Gave me presents a feeling that the fan has a sentimental importance to the author.
The following paragraphs are an analysis of the poem itself. In the first stanza, it states that the fan is the first gift a specific gentleman gave the authors mother. A first gift is usually thought of to have an especially sentimental value, and because this gift was handed down to a descendant, according to the title, gives the fan even more sentimentality. The fact that he bought the fan for five francs diminishes its value emotionally, but it was pre-war Paris when the fan was purchased so five francs may have been a great deal of money. They, he, and she are mentioned many times in the second and third stanzas, they are also the last stanzas to contain the pronouns with an exception of the last sentence of the poem. He is used frequently in the second verse and not at all in the third signifying the male role in the relationship.
Oppositely, [s]he is used even more often in the third verse suggesting the female position. This plays a role in another segment of the poem, which is explained in the next paragraphs. The forth and fifth stanzas are about the same subject matter, the fan, and continuity between verses is achieved by ending the fourth verse with the subject and verb [i]t is and starting the fifth stanza with the rest of the sentence. Every line in the forth and fifth verse is about the fan and noticeably longer.
Truth be told, any sentence in the entire poem mentioning any quality of the fan, be it where the fan was bought, the material, or color, is distinctly protracted. Another observation is that the tense is no longer in past tense, but present tense. Usage of this tense change puts forward an idea that the author is now describing the fan to the reader as if the fan were in her hands. The way the author states what the fan looks like as [t]here are wild roses supports the idea of the author is pointing out details of the fan as it is in her hands.
From the way the gentleman is stated frequently in the second verse, the mother in the third, and the fan in the hands of the daughter in the fourth and fifth it may be derived that this is the order in which the fan was handed down, which indeed it is. The author not only informs the reader that the mother gives the author the fan in the title, that it was the first gift the gentleman gave her in the first line, but also reaffirms the chronological order in which the fan was handed down to each person through the arrangement of sequential stanzas. Right through the poem there is a sense of being smothered by the climate. Five out of the eight cantos bring up the state of the weather as being stifling, killing, overcast, dusk before thunder, or sultry.
These statements of the weather are sporadic in the poem, but cant be missed. The combination of hot, sultry weather, a black lace fan, and the last two verses containing a improvisation of the past through a bird opening its wing to cool itself make almost certain the fact that the author is trying to put across the point that the black lace fan is a form of relief from the heat. As the author improvised a blackbird on a hot summer morning put [ting] out her wing as it feels the heat to cool itself, one could picture the authors mother opening the black lace fan to do the same. The blackness of the fan compared to the blackbird, the lace compared to the feather tips of the birds wings, and a handheld fan to the whole flirtatious span the blackbirds wing.
Free research essays on topics related to: fan, tense, second verse, lace, verse
Research essay sample on Black Lace Fan Fan Was Handed Poem
